


Fracture

by helens78



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: M/M, Noncanonical Character Death, Offscreen character death, One of My Favorites, Personality Swap, light quickening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-31
Updated: 2004-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 11:44:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the fight at the end of <em>Revelation 6:8</em> goes very differently, Kronos has some adjustments to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fracture

**Author's Note:**

> As an unabashed Kronos fangirl, I spend a lot of time thinking about how he'd have reacted if events in _CAH_ and _Rev 6:8_ had gone differently. This is a series of snippets that take place in a world where they do.

I've felt many things after a Quickening. Usually it's the bloodlust fading to sexual lust, the need to find the nearest body -- willing or no -- and simply take it.

This time it's a feeling of illness, one that leaves me unable to stand.

Methos is long gone by the time I can rise to my feet. Somehow I'm not surprised.

* * *

I ought to be angry with him. Murderous rage is a familiar feeling, but it's not where I am now. My plans have failed. Methos is gone. MacLeod is dead, but that's little comfort.

I should be hunting my brother. I should be coming up with the next plan. I should...

It's hard for me to concentrate these days.

Somewhere along the way I've picked up an admirer. I see him when I'm at the market, when I'm at bookshops reading, when I go out for coffee. He's _everywhere_ and I don't know why. I don't know how long he's been following me, or why I haven't noticed him before.

It highlights one thing: I need a new identity. I'm still Melvin Koren, and that has to change. I need a new start. Things don't fit right these days. I need something else. Something that doesn't have the weight of the past all over it.

* * *

I end up in Seacouver and try to pretend it isn't because this is where Methos was the last time I managed to track him down. Everything here seems familiar. It's eerie, because I don't think these are my memories. I remember an antiques store, a dojo, a bar, and I'm afraid to go to any of them. They aren't mine.

I'm calling myself Kristof now. I'm not trying very hard to hide. Not if someone's looking.

* * *

I come home one day and find voice mail. The sound of his tongue sliding over those syllables floors me, has me leaning on the kitchen counter for support.

"_Kristof, this is Adam._" Adam. Is that what he's going by now? "_We should meet._" Not just talk but meet. I hadn't even hoped for this. "_There's a cemetery fifty kilometers north of where you live now. Come on foot and alone, and I'll meet you._" He leaves more explicit directions which I commit to memory. I listen to the message again.

On foot, brother. All fifty kilometers? I can't afford not to take him literally. It's not so far. And what will it do, I wonder? Prove my loyalty, my commitment? Serve as penance for the most recent of my sins? Show him how far I'll let him humiliate me?

I should get an early start.

* * *

Fifty kilometers on foot didn't seem so bad when foot or horse were my only options. When we had a certain distance to go, we simply went, and we didn't complain of how much our legs ached once we got there. I could have been there in half an hour if he'd let me drive. Cars speed past me as I make my way out of the city, into the hills and forests. A few people think I'm hitchhiking and offer me a ride; I smile, wave, walk on.

Forty years ago I used to pick up hitchhikers myself. Few of them were ever found.

The memories aren't settling very well. I've never had a Quickening like this before, where the man -- or woman -- I've killed won't _stay dead_. It casts a different light on everything I've done, everywhere I've been, everyone I've killed. And I can't make him _stop_.

I think MacLeod is more trouble dead than alive.

I dig my hands further into my pockets and keep walking. I do wish immortality brought invulnerability with it, an ability to ignore heat or cold. Cold has always bothered me. Methos knows that, if he remembers those days even half as well as I do. Nights spent curled between his body and the bodies of slaves who were nothing more than bedwarmers in a literal sense. Sometimes the cold could be so bitter -- more cruel than either one of us, for certain.

It's hours before I get there. Hours on hours. I lose track of time and I spend the last several hours of it walking in the dark. My breath shows in the air, small clouds that get left behind as I keep walking. I can't imagine Methos showing up this late at night, unable to see every angle, every move I make. I think I'm going to be sleeping with the dead tonight.

* * *

Sunrise isn't nearly early enough. Memories that aren't mine tell me it's because it's nearing winter, that given another month or two I'll really have something to complain about, with sunrise not coming until ten. At least when the sun comes up it starts getting warmer. It's a clear day, thankfully, no clouds, no rain. Those same memories remind me that clear days are the worst, the most bitterly cold, but at the moment, sitting in the sun, I'm willing to ignore the smug lessons of a ghost and wait for my brother to show up. I pace a little to get the blood going, look around at headstones. I find one shaped like a bench and park myself on the stone. Perhaps it shows little respect to the dead to sit on one of their gravemarkers. Then again, perhaps the mortal buried under this particular gravemarker wanted people to keep him company. He didn't _have_ to have a tombstone carved into this particular shape, after all.

His _presence_ fills the edge of my senses, and the rush makes me feel warmer all over. I find myself smiling before I realize I don't know where the expression comes from.

* * *

_His skin is warm under mine, unbruised, unbroken. I'm nuzzling at his shoulder, buried in his body, and he's moaning and squirming, hands twisted up in mine as I take him--_

\--no. Make love to him. That's what this is. Easy, gentle. The pleasure's so hot it's almost killing me. And he's smiling, laughing as his head comes back on my shoulder, crying out over and over as he comes.

* * *

Methos's hands are dug into the pockets of his trenchcoat. His feet are planted, body braced, as if he expects me to come off the bench and launch myself at him. He exhales slowly, breath visible in the air.

"Brother," he says. "How have you been?"

"What a strange question," I tell him, leaning forward, resting my forearms across my knees. I want to look at him, but can't. The memories I have of him don't match the ones coming most to mind. It's unsettling.

"Does it have a strange answer?" Methos responds. He sighs and takes a seat beside me, adjusting his coat around his sword. My sword rests behind the bench, though I won't need it here. Holy ground is not something I've always been known for respecting. I should wonder why he trusts me now, but I don't. We both know what's been so _strange_ about my life lately.

"I killed your lover," I tell him, still staring at the ground.

"He'd have done the same to you if the balance had shifted that way. I've had a lot of lovers. Should I be angry over this one? Vengeful? Perhaps I've devised an elaborate trap to snare you as soon as we leave holy ground."

"Stop it." I do look at him this time, turning my head so I can take in his expression. He's not looking at me. His face is turned to the side, letting me see him in profile. He looks guarded, but less so than I'm used to. Or no... moreso... I can't tell.

I stop looking at him, rubbing at my eyes with one hand. "Something's the matter with me, brother. I need -- I want... I can't tell one thing from another."

"MacLeod was always a stubborn bastard." Methos leans forward; I can see it from the corner of my eye. He stretches a hand out, offers it palm-up and waits for me to take it. Eventually I do, slipping my fingers into his and holding. We've done this before, he and I; not often, but we've touched this way. The man in the back of my mind envies me somewhat. Methos only offered this kind of comfort in bed, it seems.

_What do you expect, youngling?_ I ask, not really caring that I'm talking to myself. _You only had him for three years, and only in fits and starts then. He was my brother for more than a thousand._

True enough, but it's MacLeod who remembers unbroken skin and lovemaking. Not me.

"This won't last," I tell Methos. "I've killed good men before. MacLeod was strong, but not as strong as that."

"You think I don't already have a dozen plans for the future?" Methos almost sounds amused. "You always did underestimate me."

"I suppose I did." I run my thumb over the back of his hand. "What would you suggest?" No, that's not the right question. Not for Methos. "What sort of plans do you have?"

"That depends on you." I can feel the shiver under Methos's skin, a reaction to my touch. I wonder if he always reacted to me this way, or if this is new. I never bothered to notice the subtleties before. "You haven't killed anyone since you took MacLeod's head, have you?"

"No."

"Do you miss it?"

"Only sometimes. Only a little. And then I have the strangest feelings..." Amused, I turn to look at him, catch him with his eyes on me. "I wonder -- is this _guilt_?"

He grins, a small motion in the corners of his lips, one I've seen too rarely. "I'm not sure," he says. "I doubt I'd recognize it if I ran across it, either."

"You wouldn't," I tell him. I can't tell if my tone is colored with bitterness or wryness. I let his hand go, rub both my hands over my face. "I can't continue this way. I'm going to end up mad or dead if I can't get free of him. You know that already, don't you?"

"I know." Methos slides his hand to the back of my neck. His fingers are warmer than they should be on a day this cold. "I won't ride with you again. Force my hand on it and I'll take your head myself." He pauses. "But I'll take you home with me."

* * *

I was right about Methos. He drove here. Smart bastard. He gives me a ride home, and I watch scenery drift by and remember it with two minds.

I don't have much to pack. It doesn't take long, and everything fits into his truck.

Methos plans for everything. He's right that I've always underestimated him. He must have contingencies set up for when MacLeod's influence is gone and I'm me again. Perhaps my days are numbered. I certainly can't trust him. Trusting him was the worst mistake I ever allowed myself to make.

It might not matter, though. It might be worth dying later on if this means I'll get to find out what it's like making love to a Methos whose skin isn't layered with bruises.

If he wonders what my smile means, he isn't asking.

_-end-_


End file.
